THE CONGRESS: Sideshows

• Share

In this corner: Martin Dies of Texas, with his big cigar and $100,000. In that corner: Reds, Fascists, Bundsmen.

In a second ring: Howard Smith of Virginia, with his ribboned pince-nez and $50,000. Other corner: the National Labor Relations Board.

In a third ring: Robert La Follette of Wisconsin, with his ice-cold voice and $50,000. Other corner: the Associated Farmers of California.

Every year after Congress goes home, a few members remain to conduct Investigations, between-sessions sparring shows, in the big marble-pilastered caucus rooms of the House and Senate office buildings at Washington. The inquisitors are financed by their colleagues (out of the Treasury) to improve the public weal and make political capital. Above are the three main attractions scheduled for the dog days, the Dies show beginning this week.

Big stuff and hot revelations have already been promised by Mr. Dies and by Senator La Follette, the former now recovered from an appendectomy that temporarily affected his heart. Mr. Smith, the calm, unpurged Virginian, has promised only a "fair and impartial" scrutiny of NLRB, but New Dealers do not like the look in his eye (TIME, July 31).

Senator La Follette's show will be cast along the lines of Author John Steinbeck's best-selling novel, The Grapes of Wrath (TIME, April 17). The persecution of Westward-wandering "Okies"* by California cops, sheriffs, labor contractors and such organizations as the Associated Farmers will be staged by expert Directors La Follette, Elbert Thomas of Utah and a third Senator to be appointed.

To help laconic Mr. Smith dig into NLRB, Speaker Bankhead appointed two 100% New Dealers, Massachusetts' Arthur Healey and Utah's Abe Murdock; and two 100% Republicans, Ohio's Harry Rouzohn and Indiana's Charles Halleck.

With relief, outspoken Arthur Healey resigned his hot spot on the Dies committee, shifted to the Smith group. Prematurely grey Mr. Healey, long a stentorian New Dealer, had been working under wraps on the Dies group, with his strongly Catholic constituency clamoring for more vigorous Red-baiting. California's young Jerry Voorhis will step into Healey's lukewarm shoes as the New Deal's flatfoot assigned to watch Mr. Dies. New Dealers begged Speaker Bankhead to add Illinois' T. V. Smith to the committee as a further balance.